Tumblr>Posterous? OAuth+LJ? and, Kyle Cassidy, LJ user rep, speaks

[charmian]

Haven't been posting that much because I've been working on a translation project. Anyway,

1. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1061735 (Discussion of a post negatively comparing Posterous to Tumblr)

I think, since both Tumblr and Posterous are growing, it's difficult to project future growth, especially as both are works in progress. Posterous hasn't done much worth noting in the last month, but Tumblr has redesigned their Dashboard and added an "ask" feature (thereby supplanting Formspring, and complementing the 'submit' feature), and I'm very interested to see where the site is going in the future. I keep seeing more and more links to Tumblr on various sites, and even a certain egregious fan-behavior incident was brought to light (by the perpetrator) on Tumblr. However, I think Posterous is indeed forging its own path, by concentrating more on business clients, so we'll see how this turns out.

2. Also, LJ seems to be modernizing some backend stuff, while also possibly planning to include OAuth? I wonder what the OAuth implementation will look like. What will users be able to do what they can't do now?

http://community.livejournal.com/changelog/8043552.html
http://community.livejournal.com/changelog/8044190.html

http://wiki.oauth.net/ServiceProviders <--list of sites that use OAuth.
http://oauth.net/about/ <--what is OAuth, and how it differs from OpenID (from the creators)
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/web/library/wa-oauth1/index.html <--technical explanation of Oauth's possibilities

3. Also, Kyle Cassidy, the LJ Advisory Board User Representative, has posted about his communications with LJ: http://kylecassidy.livejournal.com/576473.html

Summary: LJ is aware of problems with the new search feature and underreporting in the stats feature. The Best Buy ads have had some bugs fixed in their implementation. Apparently, there will be another meeting Wednesday, after which he will discuss his own goals. (IIRC, they were mostly about getting an improved backup feature).

Comments

[azurelunatic]

Somewhat refreshing to my cynical side that Kyle doesn't really know much more than senior support actually. (I didn't specifically know that the fixes to the Best Buy ad included stuff that should address netbook issues, but had I asked I believe I would have been told.) And he has to ask about everything where Support a) gets told, b) Senior Support has access to the volunteer-safe side of the bug tracking system, and can c) file our own bugs if need be. I can't think of a thing he asked about that Support and staff haven't been aware of as a problem, and I was around for the "All right, let's do a Search Issues Roundup" allcall.

However, he doesn't have to do the work necessary to be and remain Support/senior support, and he doesn't have to worry about sorting through what he says to make sure that any sensitive, internal-only information does not come out (I am not subject to an NDA in my position, but I also am exposed to information that is moderately sensitive and expected to not let that migrate), and it's sort of his job to make official-sounding announcements about what LJ is up to (Support is discouraged from sounding too official about LJ issues and activities when they're not authorized to be speaking for LJ; I skirt the line as it is).

On the whole, I'm happy to be head of Suggestions and not the user rep (which I was considering running for the first year). I feel more useful and like I have more access, and on my terms.

[damned_colonial]

What LJ OAuth would give us is the ability to post to LJ (eg. from the DW crossposter, or from other third-party sites like those endless quiz meme sites) without having to provide our LJ username/password.